Design: Chalkboard Typography

My love of all things fonts has evolved over the years.  It started with my first desk job when I learned to install new fonts on my computer and looked for any way to make my job creative and has progressed into a more mature love of typography and design and right now into an obsession with the trend of chalkboard typography.  I know it's a trend... and in a few years I'll probably be over it... but, trends are fun, people!  Get on the bandwagon!  Trends define generations and decades and become part of your memories and the times of your life. Do it.

So, Chalkboard Typography. It's so beautiful!  It's the art of handlettering in a medium we all love because it reminds us of our childhoods. I used to LOVE the opportunity to write on the chalkboard in elementary school, even if it meant the anxiety of math races.  And please please let me get the classroom job of running the erasers over that crazy machine in the janitor's closet to clean them!  

Hilary helped me make this chalkboard with a frame from our favorite local used furniture store and some chalkboard paint from the hardware store.  Then Hilary threw a wine tasting competition and we used the board as our score board and even painted the bottom of the wine glasses in that trendy way with the chalkboard paint.

(I could write an entire post on throwing a wine tasting competition and identifying a winner. Everyone brings a bottle of their favorite, everyone gets a blind taste test, votes on the winners, AND gets new favorites in the process)

I then took the chalkboard home and hung it in my kitchen.  I decided I'd rather not use it to display my grocery list. Hilary and I joked about the embarrassing lists we could post on the board to the horror of my house guests, not to mention all the erasing and chalk dust. Plus I can't take the entire chalkboard to the store with me...so, I just decided my board would be my art gallery and inspiration and the perfect place to practice chalkboard typography.  Here's my first go at it, drawn in about 20 minutes... I'm not making the cover of Oprah's magazine yet, but I hope to practice and get better: